This week we have a special Monday edition of Science Sunday. Among the topics covered by the fearless zAmboni this week are the upcoming cicada infestation, research which casts doubt on some commonly-used forensic techniques, and a prototype for a 3D ultrasound system:
While Chet Gervais, 15, was working in his father's radiology lab last summer, his dad complained that 2-D mammography only provided tumor estimates within 25 to 30 percent of the actual size. Over the next six months, Chet and his tenth-grade friend Adam developed the Matrix Probe System which uses ultrasound to create a 3-D image of the breast that can be reviewed in any plane similar to a CT or MRI scan. Their system can accurately measure the size of a tumor to within one to three percent.